BOSTON (AP) - The
Massachusetts
Parole Board has unanimously recommended commuting the sentence of
convicted
child molester Gerald ``Tooky'' Amirault, who has long maintained his
innocence
in the Fells Acres child abuse case.

Amirault, who has
served
15 years of a 30- to 40-year sentence, made voices of the victims are
heard."
the commutation request in April 2000 and appeared at a parole board
hearing
in September.

The
recommendation now goes
to acting Gov. Jane Swift.

"The governor
along with
her legal counsel will review the decision, give it careful
consideration
and then make a decision when she is ready to do so," Swift spokesman
Jason
Kauppi said.

If Swift agrees
to release
Amirault, the Governor's Council must then vote on whether to go along
with the decision.

Patti Amirault,
Gerald Amirault's
wife of nearly 24 years, ran through a shopping mall to her car when
she
got the news from her son on her cellular phone.

"I spoke with him
half an
hour ago. He's ecstatic," she said of her husband's reaction to the
decision.
"It's been very difficult for 16 years ... today is incredibly
rewarding
to us."

Family members,
calling the
case "a roller coaster," know their fight is far from over.

"We do know we
have a long
way to go," said Gerrilyn Amirault, 22.

Amirault's
attorney, James
Sultan, urged Swift and the Governor's Council to adopt the parole
board's
recommendation promptly.

The board
consists of three
former prosecutors, two former state troopers and a former probation
officer.
"Frankly, there is not a bleeding heart in the bunch," he said.

At the September
board appearance,
Amirault said he was sentenced unfairly compared to his co-defendents,
his mother and his sister, and others convicted of similar offenses.

The parole board
agreed that
Amirault had "demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that his
further
incarceration would constitute gross unfairness."

The parole board
was not
allowed to revisit the question of Amirault's guilt in rendering an
opinion,
but only considered whether he has improved himself in prison and
whether
his sentence was unfair.

"It must be
acknowledged,
however, that it is clearly a matter of public knowledge that, at the
minimum,
real and substantial doubt exists concerning petitioner's conviction,"
the board wrote.

Prosecutors
maintained that
about 40 children between the ages of 2 and 4 told the truth when they
described being tied to trees, sexually penetrated with knives and
tortured
by a "bad clown" in a "secret room."

No corroborating
physical
evidence supported the allegations.

Similar flaws in
procedures,
along with a lack of physical evidence to corroborate extraordinary
allegations
of abuse, led to other child abuse convictions being discredited
elsewhere
in the nation, the board wrote.

Amirault was
convicted in
1986 of molesting and raping eight children at his family's day care
center
in Malden. His sister, Cheryl Amirault LeFave, and mother, Violet
Amirault,
were convicted in a separate trial.

The Amiraults
always insisted
they were innocent, the victims of a sex abuse hysteria that swept the
country in the 1980s and questionable testimony from child witnesses.

A spokesman for
the Middlesex
County District Attorney's Office expressed disappointment at Friday's
decision.

The district
attorney's office
and some of those Gerald Amirault was convicted of assaulting are
fighting
his release.

LeFave received
an 8- to
20-year sentence. She was released in 1995 while her appeals were
pending,
and prosecutors did not object when her sentence was reduced in 1999 to
the 8 1/2 years she had already served.

Violet Amirault
was also
released in 1995. She died two years later.

Sultan said
Amirault plans
to return home to his wife and three children in Malden if released.
Dairy
product producer, H.P. Hood, Inc., has offered him a full-time job as a
shipper, and a licensed clinical psychologist has agreed to treat him.
Amirault said he plans to earn a college degree.

The Parole
Board voted 3-0 for parole.
Participants were Joyce Hooley, John P. Kivlan, and Daniel M. Dewey.
Kivlan and Dewey had earlier voted for release at the 2001 Board of
Pardons hearing; Hooley was not on the Board at that time.

The Parole Board did not mention
Amirault's guilt or innocence; instead they noted that he was a good
parole risk, with a good prison record, and strong family and community
support.

The release
would not necessarily happen before April 2004. The prosecuting DA,
Martha Coakley, has six months to decide whether to ask that Gerald
Amirault be indefinitely committed as a "dangerous sex offender" to a
prison psychiatric facility.

Some DAs
automatically file "dangerous
sex offender" requests when prisoners convicted of sex assaults are
released, but DA Coakley's office has been more selective. She has no
reason to love the Amirault defenders, but may wish to cut her losses.
An attempt to keep Gerald Amirault locked up would require a court
hearing; even if the judge did not believe Amirault was innocent (as
many do), he might still decide there was no reason to believe Amirault
would offend 17 years later, the legal standard for commitment. (In the
2001 Board of Pardons hearing, it was noted that Amirault did not
commit any offenses while out on bail before his 1986 trial.)